RI plants trees amid rising climate change concerns

In this case, MS Kaban said industrialized countries had owed Indonesia about Rp6 trillion (US$638.5 million) this year alone because it was able to reduce its tree felling by 5.5 million cubic meters of its production forests..
"We have 12 million cubic meters of potential production forests to be cut annually. But we only cut 6.5 million cubic meters this year. So, we have a difference of 5.5 million cubic meters of trees which were not cut down," the minister said, adding that this should be compensated for.
The compensation demanded by Indonesia from the developed nations is actually much smaller compared to the economic value of its forests.
According to Elfian Effendi, executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, a natural resources advocacy non-governmental organization, the economic value of Indonesia`s forests reaches hundreds of billions of dollars.
Indonesia still has 36.5 million hectares of conservation and 36.7 million hectares of production forests with, due to their carbon absorption capacity, have a combined economic value of between 216.4 and 234.4 billion dollars, he said.
Apart from that, Indonesian forests also hold almost 9,000 megatons of carbon concentration worth about 134.5 billion US dollars, he said.